Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, has made a bet on the future of
media in the digital era with an investment in a start-up producing business
news.

Amazon's chief executive is leading a $5m (3.3m pound) fundraising for Business Insider, which was co-founded in 2007 by Henry Blodget, a Wall Street analyst during the dotcom boom of the late 1990s.

Based in New York, Business Insider has been rapidly growing its readership with a mix of rapid business news and analysis, as well as coverage of the entertainment and technology industries.

The investment from Mr Bezos, who wealth is estimated at about $25bn by the Forbes Rich List, began over a dinner with Mr Blodget last year. "A few months later, he expressed an interest in investing," Mr Blodget told staff in a memo on Friday. "My reaction was basically "Hell, yeah!"

The $5m fundraising follows a $7.3m round the company made in 2011, and signals its intent to expand aggressively in an industry in which the internet has disrupted newspapers business models and created opportunities for start-ups.

Business Insider, which has about about 100 employees, intends to invest the money in its editorial operations, sales, technology and its conference business. The company lost about $3m last year and generated revenues of about $10m, according to Bloomberg.

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Mr Blodget was barred from working on Wall Street in 2004 and paid a $4m fine to settle allegations he misled investors over ratings given to some companies. “Ten years ago, I got what amounted to a dishonorable discharge from the industry, and I’ve always been ashamed of that,” he told the New Yorker magazine in a profile published this week.